Comments on: Skeptic Questions Patterson Bigfoot Trackshttp://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/skeptic-bf/
for Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and MoreTue, 31 Mar 2015 01:31:16 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Aaron7531http://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/skeptic-bf/comment-page-2/#comment-52357
Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:49:38 +0000http://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/skeptic-bf/#comment-52357I really enjoy reading your comments DWA. It must be frustrating when the person you are debating refuses to acknowledge your arguments. I don’t really get how you come to your conclusions jerrywayne. People not just in North America, but across the world are seeing variations of similar creatures and most sightings seems to stay consistent with others in the region. Is everybody going along with it just to annoy the skeptics? Do they all have contact with each other to get the details right? Last, have you ever heard of large scientific expedition mounted by top scientists with large funding going out to search regions with reported Bigfoot activity? No? Well, maybe if it finally happened science would get the conclusive proof it needs instead of the thousands of individual, separate sighting reports. There is so much evidence, not yet proof, but evidence that real scientists should be looking into that I find it appalling. When did science turn its back on its own original principle, to question everything you think you know?
]]>By: DWAhttp://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/skeptic-bf/comment-page-2/#comment-44562
Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:46:19 +0000http://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/skeptic-bf/#comment-44562Jerrywayne: missed this one, and as it’s an intriguing opportunity to outline some stuff, here goes.

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“DWA, let me tell you about a “sighting” of a different sort. I had a co-worker who told me he had a “sighting” of a creature half man and half horse. I kid you not. He was very sincere. He said he saw the creature at a park and it was walking ahead of him and his friend, only to disappear around a bend on the trail. He was very, very sure of what he saw. He is a honest person. He was a college kid at the time.
Now, what are you to make of this sighting. Dismiss it out of hand? Everyone knows there are no such things as what he claimed to have seen! Hey, I could say the same about bigfoot. Maybe you might say that only two guys saw this animal and thousands have seen bigfoot! True, yet how many folks saw the famous “Dover Demon”? Remember, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting. I vouch for the honesty of this kid who saw a man/horse. So, what is YOUR verdict. (BTW, I got to know this kid pretty well over a year’s time. I was able to talk to him many times over time, a luxury many researchers do not have.)
I was able to solve the centaur sighting to my own satisfaction. Before I reveal my solution, DWA, explain to me please, why you would reject this sighting (as I assume you will).

I don’t reject any of those; nor many other things. Because “reject” is the wrong word.

Here’s what I do to that centaur? sighting: nothing.

How many are there? One. Regardless the witness’s standing: ONE. There are any number of reasons that report could have happened. Lie. Hoax. Attempt to mislead for some other reason (like making a Bigfoot doubter his friend). Desire to be thought insane by at least one person. Good drugs. Bad cigarettes. GREAT beer. Optical illusion. Finding out one’s favorite supermodel believes in centaurs.

Etc. Including: just because we consider the centaur a legend doesn’t mean the centaur has to think so.

One sighting.

What, exactly, can one do with it? Where would science be if every single thing every single person reported had to be followed up?

Answer: we wouldn’t have science. We’d only have chaos.

I would only ask – and I can only ask – science to act on things that have lots of evidence to back them up. And only if the evidence looks like real people experiencing a real, plausible thing, external to them, that – and this is key – is susceptible to the process of scientific proof.

If you can show me a Centaur Sightings Database, and those reports read to me like sasquatch reports do – like accounts of real, reasonable people encountering a very specific, uniformly described something they can’t account for otherwise – now I’m saying put it in that database, and let’s see if we have something we can search on.

Otherwise: science has better things to do. Like find the sasquatch.

(Oh. That you were certain I would reject it tells me somebody isn’t reading my posts thoroughly. )

“ So, to my mind, taking sighting reports at face value must share the
stage with taking such reports as the artifacts of human witness: faulty at times, fraudulent at times, sometimes culture driven, sometimes mere fantasy driven, etc., etc. (Remember, we DO KNOW that human testimony cannot be trusted always; we DO NOT KNOW that bigfoot truly exist. So which is the truly simplest explanation?”

I said it: that people are seeing what they say they are.

This is a constant skeptical misstep, asserted metronomically but never taken past this point: People are known to be unreliable, so we have to presume that all of these reports are worthless. The obvious conclusion that must be getting drawn: some people lie, fantasize, defraud, etc. Therefore WE MUST PRESUME THAT THEY ALL DO, and thus cannot proceed until a body is dumped in our laps. In no other area of science – nor of life – do we make that presumption; why are cryptids the sole exception? And to reply by saying – as again, skeptics constantly do – that there is no proof is, simply, a circular argument with no logical foundation. Um, just asking: why would you think, given this sort of circular reasoning, that there IS no proof…?

It seems really odd that people think that a large volume of reports, generated by numerous speculated ersatz sources, happen to conveniently behave just like scientific data (which has been demonstrated more than once). What are the odds on that? No one who plays Powerball every day would bet them.

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“I think the general public may understand that you cannot have people allegedly tripping over bigfoot all over the place and still have an unconfirmed animal. You have failed to address this central criticism.”

Right. That and many other incorrect public “understandings” contribute to there being no proof yet. And I have addressed this, au contraire, many times. Public ignorance and the associated derision have kept serious science away from this topic, because serious scientists like dealing only with serious people. People are far from “tripping over bigfoot all over the place;” they are not doing this any more than they are other widely distributed animals like mountain lions, porcupines, bears and coyotes. But they are seeing them, in a lot of places. The public doesn’t understand science, by and large; nor does it understand human perception, wildlife, and the out of doors, by and large. (Don’t believe me? Read so-called skeptics. Heck, read many of the proponents!) The idea in quotes above would die quickly if the public understood the relevant topics. Largely, they don’t. The ones that do tend to keep their mouths shut because they just don’t need to hear any more from the ones who don’t. They have what they need.

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“THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE FINDING IT.” Yet, it is not found, not really.
“THOUSANDS” have found something that no one has found (or documented in any concrete fashion).”

Yep, true. Happens all the time, if the history of species discovery offers any context. Scientific proof and personal proof are two different things. Just try telling someone who has the latter that he’s wrong because there’s no former. When nothing else in your life would lead anyone to think you are a crank, why would reporting a sighting suddenly change that? Actually, reading the data, the entire range of sasquatch spoor has been found, at one time or another: everything from feces and hair to footprints and blood. Why no proof? Well, read what happens to all of this stuff when it gets found, almost always by amateurs, and it’s easy to see why. Doesn’t say anything, really, about whether the animal exists or not. Just about how people misuse evidence when they have adopted an a priori negative attitude. Nothing unusual there.

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“I hold out hope for the reality of the PNW bigfoot of yesteryear. Things were so much simpler when bigfoot was truly a rare gem.”

See, that’s your problem.

In the real world nothing is that simple. Fact is, when you’ve really acquainted yourself with the data, the continent-wide sasquatch makes sense; the PNW-only one does NOT. There is no way a wide-ranging largely nocturnal omnivore like this would stay holed up in such a restricted range, anymore than anything else like it (bears, wolves, coyotes, chimps) would. If you presume for this the basic things you presume about other animals whose behaviors seem similar, in similar habitat, you presume an animal with a large range, not a small restricted one.

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Is there an “advocate bias” or a “denial bias” attending this issue?

Actually, nothing you say in the paragraph addressing this question has any bearing on whether the animal exists or not. It does, or doesn’t, regardless of what people want to think. I don’t want to talk movies, TV, comic books or tabloids. We have a biological question here. Let’s address that.

No. Not nearly. You say “we must presume everyone’s a liar on this topic. (Or mentally ill, or on drugs, or mistaking a bear for an ape. Same thing.)” And you’re wrong. That’s not a logical position to take, on any topic. What’s logical? Thinking people who catch a fleeting glimpse of an ape, in bear country, naturally think, had to be a bear. THAT is logical. You don’t think so? See what I mean about the public not understanding how human perception works?

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“I suggest we need to shed the omnipresent bigfoot (according to your bigfoot reports) for a far less visible bigfoot for it to be a credible cryptid (a view I share with even some advocates).”

I suggest not. I base my assertion on data. (I’ve already outlined what I mean by that. If you’re not sure: RSR cures all ills.) On what are you basing yours? Many advocates are wrong, badly so, on this topic, because many advocates – like most “skeptics” – are badly informed on relevant topics. I don’t blame the animal’s nonexistence on the missteps of the searchers, because that is blatantly illogical to do.

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“[If you] have bigfoot being “found” by “THOUSANDS” of people, it would NOT be a cryptid!)”

Wrong. I have devoted no more words to any topic on Cryptomundo than I have devoted to debunking that notion. I have done a clear and compelling job, and been ably assisted by others here. It’s blatantly wrong. Thousands of people have found it; and it remains a cryptid. Voila!

And how many times need I say this? Debate this with the scientists who hold open the same possibility I do, i.e., every single one I am aware of who is as informed as I am on this topic. I mean, I’m doing a heck of a job. But one does get tired.

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“I care about cryptozoology and have followed the issues involved with it, on and off, for almost 45 years. (Yep, I’m old). I simply think we do it a disservice when we become “believers” prior to confirming evidence. Bigfoot reports, alone, simply are not the “be all” and “end all” of the discussion. Besmirching scientists who point this fact out does nothing to advance the discussion.”

Um, I’m a SKEPTIC. (See, no one knows how skeptics think! Disbelievers in Bigfoot are not skeptics, because this is NOT about belief.) No scientist, acquainted with the evidence, could do his science service by either: (a) saying flat out, without proof, that it’s real; or, (b) dismissing it. Who said anything about being and ending?

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“George B. Schaller [etc.]… I, as a skeptic, will go along with Schaller’s point of view. Bigfoot is an open
issue.”

I’m with Schaller. And you too. Exactly. Every word. In fact, my position could not be stated more exactly; nor could anyone doing a thorough read of my posts dispute that.

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“If only the advocates would also acknowledge that the existence of
bigfoot is an open issue and not treat the issue as closed (in favor of
bigfoot’s existence), then maybe we all can learn from each other and be friends. [Smile].”

Well, I keep teaching. As you can see, I keep the advocates in line. If you do so with the skeptics, now we’re getting somewhere.

“The simplest conclusion one can draw is that these people are seeing what they say they are.”

This seems to be the crux of the issue and not just for the bigfoot phenomena, but for various and sundry “anomalous” events. But is it true? Is it true that the simplest explanation is to take such accounts as bone dry literal? I think not, simply because we have no hard evidence for bigfoot (and we really should!). So, to my mind, taking sighting reports at face value must share the stage with taking such reports as the artifacts of human witness: faulty at times, fraudulent at times, sometimes culture driven, sometimes mere fantasy driven, etc., etc. (Remember, we DO KNOW that human testimony cannot be trusted always; we DO NOT KNOW that bigfoot truly exist. So which is the truly simplest explanation?)

“The problem is that the general public doesn’t perceive the essential difficulty of confirming unconfirmed species….”

I think the general public may understand that you cannot have people allegedly tripping over bigfoot all over the place and still have an unconfirmed animal. You have failed to address this central criticism. You may want to point to the vast wilderness regions in the U.S. and Canada as reasons for the cryptid status of bigfoot, but this is beside the point. Your contention is this: “THOUSANDS of people are finding it [bigfoot].” Let me repeat, in your words, for effect: “THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE FINDING IT.” Yet, it is not found, not really. “THOUSANDS” have found something that no one has found (or documented in any concrete fashion).

I hold out hope for the reality of the PNW bigfoot of yesteryear. Things were so much simpler when bigfoot was truly a rare gem. You had a creature so rare and elusive that documented sightings were likewise very rare. Then, bigfoot became a rock star. Cable mystery-mongers had the old standby–bigfoot. Bigfoot went Hollywood—-and now the old fellow is being seen everywhere. Too bad the initial mystery got swallowed up by a cultural, myth in the making, icon.

Is there an “advocate bias” or a “denial bias” attending this issue?

Here, we are talking about different issues. You are suggesting scientists have a “denial bias” that you easily see through. My concern was with advocacy bias as it is found in media and culture. Pro-bigfoot books, documentaries, and tv programs are much more likely to be financed and produced than skeptical treatments of the same subject. It has nothing to do with the validity of bigfoot phenomena and everything to do with making money. More folks would like to be entertained by mysteries than by debunking or skeptical treatments. (I had this point driven home to me years ago when a female friend of mine was very interested in an upcoming tv program on ghosts. She was fascinated by ghost stories and tv docs about ghosts. I missed the show and later asked her how it went. She said: “Oh, it was no good.” Really, I said. “Oh, yea, it was so bad I couldn’t even finish watching it.” I thought maybe it was just a cheap production, or maybe one even too credulous for my ghost fascinated friend. No, it was an “awful” show because it debunked ghosts; it showed how some ghost pictures and films were hoaxed.)

I suggest “people lie”, and your rejoinder: “No, you’re wrong.”

Enough said.

I suggest we need to shed the omnipresent bigfoot (according to your bigfoot reports) for a far less visible bigfoot for it to be a credible cryptid (a view I share with even some advocates). Perhaps I didn’t write it up clearly for your reply, “you and what army of biologists” are going to decide what report is “unlikely”, seems to have me and some “army” involved in picking and choosing.[Smile] That was not my point. (And to make my point, once more: If you have bigfoot being “found” by “THOUSANDS” of people, it would NOT be a cryptid!)

I care about cryptozoology and have followed the issues involved with it, on and off, for almost 45 years. (Yep, I’m old). I simply think we do it a disservice when we become “believers” prior to confirming evidence. Bigfoot reports, alone, simply are not the “be all” and “end all” of the discussion. Besmirching scientists who point this fact out does nothing to advance the discussion.

George B. Schaller writes the following about the yeti in his forward to Meldrum’s book on bigfoot.
“Naturally, I am intrigued. I realize that the evidence [for yeti] includes hoaxes, delusions, and mistaken identities, prejudiced conclusions, and cultural legends of dubious value as testimony.” He goes on to write: “I look at the evidence with a naturalist’s eye. I am neither a believer nor can I reject all the evidence and conclude that a novel apelike being cannot exist.”
Writing about bigfoot, he says: “But there is still no proof. No bones, no skin, no conclusive DNA analysis from hairs. The question of existence remains open.”

I, as a skeptic, will go along with Schaller’s point of view. Bigfoot is an open issue. If only the advocates would also acknowledge that the existence of bigfoot is an open issue and not treat the issue as closed (in favor of bigfoot’s existence), then maybe we all can learn from each other and be friends. [Smile].

Thanks again for your comments. Unfortunately, I have to use the company computer (after hours) to add my two cents worth, hence my sometimes slow and incomplete responses.

Before I continue, I would like to state plainly my overriding stance concerning skepticism, advocacy and the existence of bigfoot. I do not pretend to know if bigfoot exists or not. I do have serious doubts, however. My complaint with the bigfoot phenomena is that advocates DO claim a certainty: BIGFOOT EXISTS! It is this certainty that I question. It is this certainty that I believe puts cryptozoology in a bad light with many folks, lay and professional.

Back to “sightings”. Another reason why I find bigfoot sightings questionable: such “sightings” are not unique in the world of other questionable entities. If people reported ONLY giant apes in the forests of America, I would say “Hey, there MUST be something to it!” But, alas, people are seeing space aliens in their bedrooms; ghosts in the mall; werewolves down by the creek; UFO’s above us; mermaids combing their beautiful long hair; dead Elvis alive and well at the local trailer park; etc., etc. Now, I grant you, bigfoot is a more plausible entity than the ones mentioned (although I might get some argument from others here to the contrary), but we are talking about SIGHTINGS, and a sighting is a sighting is a sighting. (If you use a “plausibility standard” to accept or reject an entity’s supporting “sightings”, then be prepared to have folks reject the idea of giant, hidden, unknown types of apes populating an industrialized nation that has no confirmable natural history of such large animals.)

Another reason I am doubtful about bigfoot “sightings” concerns the issue of contradictions. You state bigfoot sightings are “uncanny” in their similarities. Maybe this is so. What I meant by contradictions is this: the reports seem to contradict what we would rationally expect from such reports, matching “sightings” to reality. As I pointed out, Patterson and Gimlin estimated the weight of their film subject at 400-500 pounds. Yet, independent analysis of the depth of the prints allegedly left by this subject, analysis made by both advocates and skeptics, suggests Patterson’s bigfoot weighed almost 2000 pounds! Now, the image on the film as well as testimony by the witnesses, as well as common sense, do not support an almost 2000 pound animal. You skirt the issue by simply saying the calculation must be in error. Maybe. But also maybe, the tracks were laid by something other than a 500 pound ape with flat, padded feet, suggestive of a hoax.

To expand: let’s match “sightings” with what we may extrapolate from ape behavior. First, since it is assumed that we are talking about a very large ape with a pronounced sagittal crest, this would indicate a large diet made up of hard fiber, roots, nuts, and the like. This massive animal would spend a big part of its day eating and part of the day conserving its energy. If we extrapolate gorilla behavior, we would expect an animal of social structure, of family and groups. Most reports run counter to what we would expect from such ape behavior. What we find instead is an almost too obvious mythological motif: the Wandering Ape of Solitude. A lobo. No family or group sightings. No animal continuously grubbing for food. Just an ape striding here and there. (This problem, at least to me, would be alleviated if we followed Sanderson and assumed we are talking about primitive humans and not go the way of Krantz and Meldrum, an American ape.)

DWA, let me tell you about a “sighting” of a different sort. I had a co-worker who told me he had a “sighting” of a creature half man and half horse. I kid you not. He was very sincere. He said he saw the creature at a park and it was walking ahead of him and his friend, only to disappear around a bend on the trail. He was very, very sure of what he saw. He is a honest person. He was a college kid at the time.

Now, what are you to make of this sighting. Dismiss it out of hand? Everyone knows there are no such things as what he claimed to have seen! Hey, I could say the same about bigfoot. Maybe you might say that only two guys saw this animal and thousands have seen bigfoot! True, yet how many folks saw the famous “Dover Demon”? Remember, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting. I vouch for the honesty of this kid who saw a man/horse. So, what is YOUR verdict. (BTW, I got to know this kid pretty well over a year’s time. I was able to talk to him many times over time, a luxury many researchers do not have.)

I was able to solve the centaur sighting to my own satisfaction. Before I reveal my solution, DWA, explain to me please, why you would reject this sighting (as I assume you will).

“It makes no sense to have this creature seen everywhere, including peoples’ back yards, and it still is unconfirmed!”

It actually makes total sense. People seeing an animal does not equal scientific proof. Personal proof, yes, but science needs to provide community confirmation. Once again, it’s not 2+2 = 4 here. it’s 1+1+1+1+1 etc. = 0, because science refuses to do the addition.

“So to make bigfoot credible (to me anyway), you have to throw out the unlikely sightings of it everywhere.”

And you and what army of biologists – based of course on careful field study – are going to decide how to define “unlikely”?

One totally unacceptable (to science) answer:

“any sighting I, personally, am not comfortable with because it doesn’t comport with what I think.”

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There are all kinds of scenarios that one can suggest that would explain why a person interprets an anomalous event in the wild as a “sighting” of bigfoot. (Here’s one. Sam is hiking in the woods late one afternoon and he sees, a hundred yards away in a shadow, a large bipedal hairy animal. He is baffled and later interprets what he saw as bigfoot. He actually saw the back end of a moose; the rest of the moose obscured by undergrowth.
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That only “suggests” anything if you don’t read sighting reports. here’s what really happens: Sam sees a bigfoot, thinks it’s the back end of a moose he just wounded, and kills the sasquatch, with one shot!

And that’s an actual report. See why I say: RSR?

And of course, if you are human, mine, not yours, is the kind of report one should expect. One puts things into the templates of what one knows. One does not see something mundane, and put it in a template of The Unknown. People’s minds just do not work that way (unless they’re being hospitalized for the way their minds are working).

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(But why do I have this mental image of you shouting out loud sitting at your keyboard?) [SMILE]
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***

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To state that Daegling, an anthropologist who has studied issues relating to bigfoot, is not informed is odd and contrary to normally defined words. It seems you are stating this: “If you agree with DWA, you are informed; if you disagree with DWA, you are not informed!”
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***

I simply said that, when it comes to the sasquatch, Daegling forgets he’s an anthropologist. He becomes a frothing true-believer-in-nonexistence. He actually says that Jeff Meldrum has to address the issue of whether that’s a man in a suit, when Meldrum has more than satisfied himself that it’s not. How? Read his book, which, in “reviewing” it, Daegling clearly did not.

I just know when you have read up on the topic and when you have not. I don’t look at your sheepskin, I look at your evidence. Daegling is blatantly uninformed when it comes to the evidence. I don’t say that. DAEGLING DOE…heh heh, does.
It’s eminently clear from reading what he says, and comparing it to what I have read. That’s all. It is simply what any informed person does when judging someone else’s level of information.

And with all this, Daegs comes no closer than saying that that’s a sasquatch; he just can’t say so. “The identity of the film subject cannot be determined with any confidence.” If it’s a man in an ape suit, my experience says, yes it can be. Because, quite simply, it looks like…heh heh, one.

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It seems that you treat “sighting reports” as some kind of “holy writ”, incontestable, definitive, and free of doubt.
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***

I said up there, and have said many times, the following: scientists (and people who think like them ), reviewing the anecdotal evidence, show that it behaves like data with a naturally-occurring source. A scientist, purely because he is one, might want to know why, rather than insisting that, against all odds and rationality, lies are behaving like data.

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Third, “sighting reports” are almost always compiled and investigated by advocates themselves.
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And whose fault is that? At least the advocates investigate; they don’t look the other way and dismiss.

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most sighters find a sympathetic ear as they relate their story to an advocate (and may unintentionally embellish the story as a result). It is also not beyond the pale that an advocate may lack the skills necessary for the job and actually “lead the witness”.
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I’d say they should find a sympathetic ear (i.e., one that doesn’t dismiss them, out of hand, as nuts, Ben Radford). And remember what you are presuming, and yes, you certainly are: *** Yes, you are, because you are saying it’s all fake. I’m saying that if one of them is straight up, than everything on the physical plane of existence says we have a new species here. And everything on the physical plane of existence bets all its chips that if there is one, there are many more than one “good” one. Because that is how reality, simply, works, everywhere we look.

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Fifth, people lie.

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No, you’re wrong. *** Yes, this IS, logically and inescapably, what you think. (Caps just to call your attention to what’s in your head. ***

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Sixth, as I have stated many times, the “sighting reports” are actually too numerous. The notion that there is a reclusive ape native to the U.S. and it is unconfirmed over the generations makes sense if we relegated it to the outposts (PNW?), and have it very rarely, if ever, seen. It makes no sense to have this creature seen everywhere, including peoples’ back yards, and it still is unconfirmed! So to make bigfoot credible (to me anyway), you have to throw out the unlikely sightings of it everywhere.
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Fortunately for you, me, and science, a scientist, with his mind on correctly (and most demonstrably aren’t when it comes to this, as they let their incredulity get in the way of their science), would reject every word of what you say there. If the animal exists in the places it is being seen, well, of course the sighting reports make sense, silly! Your thesis – logically and inescapably – is that they, well, just can’t be seeing that. They can’t, because science hasn’t confirmed it!

If Science has not confirmed it, it doesn’t exist. I just summed up the skeptical take on the sasquatch. If you actually were acquainted with the data, it would make perfect sense to you; science has the data right in front of it, and refuses to believe it.

***

And *I* have much more to say too. But I have, once again, said it all before. I am so patient.

Thanks for your comments and your robust advocacy. (But why do I have this mental image of you shouting out loud sitting at your keyboard?) [SMILE]

Amigo, I think you might want to add a glossary to your posts, just so we know how you define your terms. To state that Daegling, an anthropologist who has studied issues relating to bigfoot, is NOT INFORMED is odd and contrary to normally defined words. It seems you are stating this: “If you agree with DWA, you are INFORMED; if you disagree with DWA, you are NOT INFORMED!” Pardon me, but if this is your position, well it is full of….(well)…. immodesty.
[SMILE AGAIN]

It seems that you treat “sighting reports” as some kind of “holy writ”, incontestable, definitive, and free of doubt. This is probably the defining difference in our views; I, of course, am doubtful and do not see such reports as conclusively in favor of the advocate.

Here are some of the reasons I am not as impressed as you are concerning “Reports”. First, I get the impression that advocates think the “playing field” (between skeptic and advocate) is level, and this “level playing field” is tilted in favor of the advocate by “Reports” of bigfoot. This view totally ignores the fact that
the field is not level to begin with. There is a little thing known as “negative evidence” i.e., no confirmed animal at all, no body, no bones, no DNA, no incontestable scat, no incontestable film, no known natural history, etc., etc. Do “sighting reports” really erase this advocacy deficit and give a level playing field? Many folks, especially “INFORMED” scientists, would say no.

Second (and you have admitted as much in another post, if I remember), we really know nothing, by and large, about the people claiming to see bigfoot? We may know something about some folk, here and there, but the large bulk of “sightings” are just details on a web sight or in a book or magazine. Are the majority of sightings researched impeccably and thoroughly? In another post, you seemed to say you frankly didn’t care if sightings were confirmed by any hard, empirical method. (Of course, I may be misremembering your comments; you will want to correct me if I’m mistaken. [SMILE])

Third, “sighting reports” are almost always compiled and investigated by advocates themselves. Except for an occasional non-partial news reporter (who usually is non-committal concerning the reality of such reports), most sighters find a sympathetic ear as they relate their story to an advocate (and may unintentionally embellish the story as a result). It is also not beyond the pale that an advocate may lack the skills necessary for the job and actually “lead the witness”.

Fourth, I would say that “people see what they see” is a truism. The question is: do they accurately remember what they see. The evidence of studies on this very issue suggest they do not. Despite your admonitions to the contrary, eye-witnesses are simply not always reliable. Bare reports do not, can not, factor in such relevant information as to whether sighters are prone to suggestion or even fantasy prone.
There are all kinds of scenarios that one can suggest that would explain why a person interprets an anomalous event in the wild as a “sighting” of bigfoot. (Here’s one. Sam is hiking in the woods late one afternoon and he sees, a hundred yards away in a shadow, a large bipedal hairy animal. He is baffled and later interprets what he saw as bigfoot. He actually saw the back end of a moose; the rest of the moose obscured by undergrowth.)

Fifth, people lie. Even “reputable” people tell stories. You simply have no way of knowing if a person is lying or not. Impossible. While I am not suggesting that all reports are knowing lies, you cannot rule out that the more adventurous accounts, and maybe even the cleverly mundane, are made up stories (“I killed two bigfoot, Art. Then I got scared and buried the bodies!”)

Sixth, as I have stated many times, the “sighting reports” are actually too numerous. The notion that there is a reclusive ape native to the U.S. and it is unconfirmed over the generations makes sense if we relegated it to the outposts (PNW?), and have it very rarely, if ever, seen. It makes no sense to have this creature seen everywhere, including peoples’ back yards, and it STILL is unconfirmed! So to make bigfoot credible (to me anyway), you have to throw out the unlikely sightings of it everywhere.

Seventh, the “uncanny” consistency of bigfoot reports makes me more suspicious, not less. This seems to me to be the hallmark of a culturally driven phenom, rather than biologically driven.
Remember, earlier this year we had a sighting of an “ape” in a tree in Florida. One person said he saw a monkey in the tree. Second person came along and said he saw a squirrel in the tree. Another person claimed to have seen an orangutan in the tree! Now, this was the same animal, but different interpretations were made by different folks. With bigfoot, there is less interpretation? Razor sharp witnesses, or witnesses inclined to see what a bigfoot is supposed to look like (based on popular conceptions)?

Amigo, I have other comments to make, but I must call it a day. Take care.

My point is this: you have TOO LARGE an alleged data base of sightings of bigfoot for the creature not to have been killed, caught, definitively filmed, ran over, etc., etc., by the thousands of hunters, outdoorsmen, hikers, highway drivers, professional trappers, ranchers, professional trackers, etc., etc., that populate the countryside.

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As has been said by a proponent: that is nothing but a supposition, unbacked by evidence.

From the time I’ve spent in “the countryside,” which compared to anyone who doesn’t actually live there is copious, I can tell you that a healthy population of 100-foot whales could be swimming around out there, banking through the trees, floating gracefully on air currents above grazing cattle, and you’d know about them what you know about the sasquatch. One thing skeptics don’t know is how thinly populated most of the North American continent is. Trust me: we hikers, backpackers, long-distance drivers and general outdoorspeople know. There is plenty of room for a healthy population of sasquatch – more, in fact, than there is for bears. And we have enough of those, don’t we.

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Kenneth Wylie wrote BIGFOOT: A Personal Inquiry into a Phenomena, and he concluded that bigfoot is a modern myth propped up by hoaxes.
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I never read the book and I dismissed Wylie. But I should say why. He’s saying that EVERYTHING OUT THERE IS A HOAX. I KNOW he has no evidence of that. Dismissed. If that is you are characterizing his “thesis” correctly. This is what I mean about scientists forsaking their science for incredulity when it comes to this topic. SCIENCE RUNS ON EVIDENCE, NOT PET “THESES.” RSR, Wylie! The ONLY thing I ask (and it ain’t much) is that a scientist debunk, conclusively, enough pieces of evidence to lead me to conclude that the rest could, reasonably, be false positives. I am not holding my breath.

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The North American Science Institute, a bigfoot advocacy group (it turns out), in studying the Patterson films and testimony, concluded that Patterson’s film subject weighed 1,957 pounds. Almost two tons!
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I have said it before and I will say it again (and again and again and again and…): I do not blame the animal’s nonexistence on the mistakes of those searching for it. (1,957 pounds is almost ONE ton, speaking of mistakes.

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Now, many advocates place the height of Patterson’s subject at just over 6 feet (or maybe at 6 feet 6 inches). Now, tell me DWA, does the creature in the film, at 6 feet to 6 feet 6 inches, really look and move like an animal weighing two tons? And just think, it made the tracks flatfooted and with padded feet!
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Well, now that you mention it, there really is nothing incredible about an animal that big with flat padded feet walking like that. Right? Right. I don’t know ANYONE who can say, authoritatively, how you “should” walk if you weigh x. I want to know: what’s that on the film? I’m not concerned what diet she’s on. I just want to know: how do you get a human in a suit proportioned like that? No, SHOW me. (Bill Munns, BTW, while we’re on science, has shown us. To wit: can’t be done.)

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Or is there a contradiction between what the film gives us (remember, Gimlin originally said the creature appeared to be 400-500 pounds) , and what analysis of the evidence gives us. I submit that bigfoot phenomena is shot through with such contradictions.
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And here’s another unschooled estimate by an amateur being held up as Crypto’s Contradictory “Answer.” No wonder crypto can’t get traction as a science! If you read sighting reports, you’d recognize that one thing the bigfoot phenomenon is “shot through” with is uncanny consistency.